Socius — Restaurant in King's Lynn and West Norfolk

We enjoyed a lovely evening. The food is beautiful, good wines and a stylish experience. We particularly enjoyed the tuna tartare and the hake. The small plates work well for sharing.

Just a note about booking; I booked online and ticked the ‘restaurant’ option but when we arrived we were seated at the ‘wine wall’ high table. I realised this was a mistake and asked to move.

That day I’d received a text asking me to confirm my booking. I didn’t click confirm as even though the content of the text stated the correct booking time… the following field had an incorrect time displayed. I suspect that my booking was confused with someone else; due to arrive half an hour earlier, someone that had booked the wine wall table.

The reason I mention this is because I had to work fairly hard to justify my request to move into the restaurant. At first we were seated upstairs with no other diners and no view of the kitchen (a really great addition to the atmosphere). I asked a lovely waiter (Eddie?) if we could move downstairs to the empty tables that we could see and she returned to say not possible. I pursued it further and explained that the incorrect time and the incorrect table suggested it was the restaurant’s error and had this not occurred we would have originally been seated in the tables in the heart of the restaurant. I felt Eddie understood the predicament and this time she returned with good news. We moved downstairs!

We enjoyed our meal and the service was excellent. Unfortunately we were a little disappointed at the end of the meal when a senior waiter ‘explained’ to me that had we wanted a downstairs restaurant table I could have added a note to my booking. This comment suggested the restaurant were not taking responsibility for the mishap after-all. It would have been preferable if the issue had not been re visited if this was the choice of conclusion.

Further note: when booking I was taken from the Socius website to the service ResDiary. The options for meal times and table location are...

We had a lovely evening last night. The venue is well presented and easy to find in Burnham market. The food was exceptional and also quite reasonable in price for the quality and portion sizes. We spent about £60 a person on food and drink but couldn’t finish everything we had ordered because we were too full 😭

When the food is of such high quality, every small thing stands out as strange. We thought the burrata was delicious, but the least well presented for all the dishes. Everything else was very cleanly presented, the burrata not so much. We also found our main dishes to be slightly on the salty side due to the dressing/sauce. The meat itself was absolutely perfect, just slightly overpowered by the salty sauces. That being said, this could be chalked up to personal taste. The sauce with the meat was delicious for the first few bites, but the salt started to build up by the end of the dish. The Hake and steak were very generous portions 👍🏽 none of this should be taken as a “negative” comment. Just observations when everything is to such a high standard.

They did well to accommodate my wife who can’t eat dairy, the waiter knew all the answers off the top of his head, so the team were evidently briefed well and things were well communicated.

Drinks menu was nice, given we were driving we could only try a wine and local beer, both nice.

We didn’t try deserts as we overate in the starter and...

The highest praises should be (and clearly are) sung of a restaurant like this. It was so good that my Dad and I booked a table for the next day while paying the bill. Wonderful staff warmly welcomed us back.

Excellent food, worthy of Michelin guide notice, served in an unpretentious way. No 10-course tasting menu here, you can order as much or as little as you like. The first night we were at the kitchen table, which I highly recommend as you are right by the head chef, who kindly explained some of the dishes to us.

All of it works like a well oiled machine, from the staff to the food, we were never left looking about for service. The seafood platter, swede, and arancini were the stars for me, but note that the menu changes often to keep it fresh and exciting.

Two truly memorable meals, I’ll be back whenever I return to Norfolk.

All that considered, it was surprisingly good value. We had a bottle of wine with each meal and hardly reached £100 for 2 (which prompted, in part, the immediate booking of the next night). We didn’t leave overstuffed, like tasting menus often cause, because we didn’t order loads, (2 x small plates, 2x larger plates, and a dessert) but that suited...